


Death Takes a Holiday

by Gimmemocha



Series: Rachel Davenport [2]
Category: Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter - Laurell K. Hamilton
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-05
Updated: 2016-01-05
Packaged: 2018-05-11 23:47:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 21,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5646214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gimmemocha/pseuds/Gimmemocha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Edward is in New York again, and when trouble finds him, he finds Rachel Davenport. She'll need every ounce of power from every resource possible to see Death safe again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I hadn't realized I hadn't posted this yet! Here it is, the next story in the Rachel/Edward stories. There is part of a third, but that's when I found out that LKH didn't much care for fanfic, so I stopped writing it. Kind of a pity. I was really enjoying writing Richard...

**He just smiled, that irritating smile that meant he wasn’t going to answer. But he did. "Even Death has needs."** \-- The Killing Dance, pg. 385 Laurell K. Hamilton

 

Glass makes a peculiar sound when it shatters, a sound that has no nearest equivalent. It’s always a bad sound. It always means someone’s in pain, in trouble, or in too much of a hurry. Usually all three, but inevitably it’s the sound of trouble: car crashes, earthquakes, stray baseballs…

In my case, it was a flying bounty hunter.

I had been comfortably curled up in my favorite big stuffy chair with a cup of fresh-brewed cinnamon tea, and was well into the steamiest portion of the latest Catherine Coulter novel. All in all, it was a cozy kind of night. Then a body crashed through my living room window.

I flung my teacup in one direction, my book in another. I was having a go at scrambling out of the chair, but, this being both October and New York City, I was wrapped in a blanket which made things difficult. Adrenaline took me to my feet before my mind kicked into gear.

I stared at the bleeding man on my floor and got another shock as I realized I recognized him. Ted Forrester. I hadn’t expected to see him again this side of Hell. The last time I had seen him, he had been mulling over whether or not I was worth a bullet in the head. And that was after he’d already killed one man and shot three holes in a werewolf. Of course, I had known the man was going to die, the werewolf lived, and Ted didn’t shoot me. Besides, he had sent me a lovely present afterwards so I had forgiven him. I thought.

He rolled slightly, his body crunching across shards of glass from my now-shattered window. For a moment he made as if to stand, then he dropped back down with a groan.

A noise on the fire escape jerked my attention to the window. I have never felt so unarmed in my life. I minced across the glass-littered carpet, taking slow steps to Ted’s side. The living room was brightly-lit, the fire escape wasn’t. I couldn’t tell what was out there, but I knew more about Ted than I wanted to know. I knew he was an efficient killer, without remorse or guilt. Whatever was out there had done damage to him, and I did not want it in my house.

The thing on the fire escape scuttled toward the broken window. I could make out a hunched form, and as it leaned closer, a human face. Human-seeming, anyway. Fury had turned its eyes pure red, and exposed fangs told me the rest of the story. A vampire. While half of my mind was running like a rabbit, the other half was reminding me that vampires couldn’t enter a house uninvited, and he was certainly not invited.

In school, they had taught us never to meet the gaze of a vampire. But I wasn’t exactly prepared for the moment. Our eyes locked. My panic faded to a background murmur of unease, and my breathing slowed. I don’t know really how to describe it except to say that he was in my mind, he was my mind.

"Let me in," he whispered.

I took a step toward him.

Pain flared from my leg, stabbing at the haze around my thoughts. Instinct took over. I jerked back, head snapping downward.

Ted stared up at me, a knife held in his hand. It dripped blood. Mine, I think, and only mine. He had cut me, sliced my leg to break the spell of the vampire.

The vampire was cursing in a language I didn’t know, but a tone I did. Words like that sound similar in any tongue.

I turned my head toward the window, without raising my eyes. "You have three seconds to get away from my building," I said in a voice that trembled like the last of the autumn leaves. "If you’re still here when I get to three, I am going to fry you."

I couldn’t do that, not really, but he believed me. "You can’t hide here forever, little man," the vampire slurred around his fangs. Then he was gone. I think he jumped.

Carefully, timidly, I limped toward the windows. Just as my courage gave out, I reached up and snatched down the blinds. I practically ran to the other windows, doing the same. A silly gesture, wasn’t it? As if blinds could keep out vampires, as if they wouldn’t be there if I couldn’t see them. Silly maybe, but I felt better for it.

Back in the living room, Ted was trying to pull himself to his feet, bracing his arms on my solid oak coffee table. I moved to help him, but stopped. There wasn’t an inch of him that wasn’t bleeding, and I didn’t know how to keep from hurting him.

I couldn’t take it all in. Shaking my head, I hobbled to the phone.

"Where are you going?" he asked, a harsher tone than any I’d heard him use before.

"I’m calling an ambulance," I said, picking up the handset.

"Put it down."

"Ted, you need a hospital."

"Put down the phone, Rachel."

I glanced over at him. There was a gun in his hand. It wasn’t yet pointing at me, but I had seen him shoot. If he pointed it at me, he was going to shoot me. I lifted my gaze from the gun to his eyes. They were as blue as I remembered, not the pale blue of a husky but the deep blue of the coldest heart of an iceberg. The same color, the same cold. Right now, I still had a choice about getting shot or not. I put the phone down.

He lowered the gun. "I can’t go to a hospital. They can get to me, there."

I was still shaking, maybe now more than I had been. I wasn’t sure which was worse, the monster on the fire escape or the monster on my living room floor. "They can get to you here, too."

"That one couldn’t."

"That one didn’t try very hard! Jesus Christ, Ted, you brought a vampire to my house!"

He studied me. Something was going on in his head, but I couldn’t have even taken a guess as to what. "I’ll go," he said. "You bought me some time, at least. I’ll pay for the window."

I was too confused to protest at first. I watched him try to pry himself off the floor. His left palm ground down on the shattered fragments of glass from my window, but he didn’t make a sound. I made one for him, an indrawn breath kissed with a cry. "Don’t. Just… just sit there. Don’t move. Let me clean up the glass."

He looked at me again, but said nothing. He just sat back down, leaning his back against the coffee table. I went into the tiny kitchen area for a plastic bag and the Dust Devil vacuum cleaner.

My hands were still shaking as I crouched, gingerly picking up the largest pieces of glass. They were, one and all, bloody. I tried not to think of it. Ted said nothing, catching his breath maybe or just wallowing in pain. I couldn’t tell. Thankfully, I’m no kind of empath. I realized I was muttering curses under my breath, and snapped my mouth closed.

"You live in this neighborhood and you’ve never had anyone break in through a window?" Ted asked.

Maybe it was a good sign that he sounded amused. I should have been relieved. I wasn’t. "Shut up, Ted, just shut up. No, for your information, no one has ever crashed through my window with a vampire chasing them, stabbed me, and then pointed a gun at me." Which brought up a good point. "Why the hell didn’t you just shoot the damned thing?"

"Couldn’t," he said, and still amused might I add. "No ammo."

No bullets?! I looked up, fully prepared to unload my wrath on him. Then I saw his face, his body, covered with blood and cuts. My adrenaline-inspired anger melted away. So did the laughter in his eyes.

"We should move you to the loveseat," I said softly.

Without looking at himself, he replied, "You might want to put some towels down first."

Yes, there was that much blood. I began to wonder why he was still conscious, but I got the towels. I like my towels like I like my blankets, big and thick. Bath sheets, I think they’re technically called. Whatever. I unrolled three of them across the cushions of the loveseat and moved to help Ted stand.

He waved me off. "I can do it."

I couldn’t watch. I may not have empathy, but I do have sympathy. "I’ll . . . get some things to treat your wounds."

In the bathroom, I took my time. First, I took a look at my leg. It hurt a lot worse than it looked. I’ve cut myself worse slicing open bagels. Now I really felt like a world-class wimp. Fetching a basin of warm, soapy water took a few minutes, as did digging out a long-unused bottle of witch hazel. I wouldn’t know what other first aid tidbits to apply until I got him cleaned up and could judge how bad off he really was. I did get tweezers, though. I even stopped in the small bedroom long enough to pick up some old t-shirts I could rip apart.

When I got back to the living room, Ted was sprawled across one cushion of the loveseat, booted feet up on my coffee table. He would have looked like a comfortable and welcomed guest, if he hadn’t also looked like he’d taken a trip through a frappe machine. I sat next to him, leaving my armload on the table.

His eyes were closed, but I didn’t think he was asleep. I tore a long strip off of one of the t-shirts ("Bo Knows Football" it had read, once upon a time) and wadded it up, soaking it in the soapy water. I had to fold my legs under me so I could get close enough to Ted’s face. I wanted to start there; facial injuries are so personal, they’re somehow more offensive than injuries anywhere else.

"This is going to hurt, you know," I said, hesitating with the damp cloth hovering just over his skin.

"Not much more than getting cut did," he said.

Good point. I had to move carefully to remove blood without pushing any lingering shards of glass further into his skin. Soon, I wasn’t even thinking of him as a person. I had narrowed my focus down to just a few inches of epidermis, searching for the stray sparkle that would indicate glass. 

Most of his face was free of the stuff. He must have folded his arms over his head before leaping through the window. Finally, I paused, setting the rag down to pick up the tweezers.

"You smell like cinnamon," Ted said.

I hesitated, eyes shifting upward. His were still closed. My hands probably did smell like cinnamon; I had ground some for my tea. I thought it over, then got back to work. "Please don’t make personal observations at a time like this," I said softly, eyelashes almost brushing his cheek as I tried to remove a tiny sliver of glass from his cheek. "It makes me think you’re flirting, and if I started to think that, I’d jump out the window you came in."

The skin tightened under my tweezers. Ted was smiling. This was just too surreal.

Time passed in silence, soft brushing of cloth against his face, rasping over his five o’clock shadow, punctuated by an occasional clink as I set the removed glass shards in the plastic bag with their larger cousins.

"You haven’t asked me what happened," Ted said.

"Survival instinct?" I suggested, leaning back to inspect my handiwork.

"I crashed through your window, and your first reaction was to throw your teacup at the wall. I don’t think you have a survival instinct." Trust Ted to notice the small details at a time like that. 

This was positively chatty, for him. Maybe he just had a weird reaction to adrenaline. I couldn’t figure it out, but I thought about it as I helped him take off his shirt. There was glass in it, too, so I just dumped the entire thing into the bag. Then I thought I understood what was behind his attempts at charm. "You don’t have to be charming, you know. I’m not going to kick you out of my apartment."

He didn’t lean back again. "You were going to half an hour ago."

Had it been that long? I could see larger pieces of glass in his back. How had he ever been comfortable slouched back? "Now that was survival instinct," I insisted, but I tempered it with a smile. It faded as I began to remove the shards from him. He didn’t so much as flinch or tense. It just wasn’t normal. "I’m sorry about that," I said, not meaning the pain I was causing him. "I wouldn’t have really let you leave."

"I know," he said.

"Which is why you came here."

"Yes."

I couldn’t explain my reaction, I couldn’t even comprehend it or name it. So I just ripped more t-shirt for a fresh rag and began cleaning his back off. "You confuse the hell out of me," I mumbled.

"I confuse most people," he replied.

"Most? Not everyone? There's someone out there who does understand you?"

"One person. Usually."

"Is he a killer, too?"

"She. And usually."

Some answers just require attention, and my hands hesitated. I was, evidently, incapable of doing two things at once. "Pity she doesn’t live in New York," I said finally.

"I wouldn’t have gone to her even if she did."

"Wouldn’t she have helped you?"

"Yes," he said. "And she would have shot the vampire."

Excuse me for not being a murderer, I wanted to say. Instead, I said, "So why wouldn’t you go to her? She sounds ideal for this situation."

"She would never let me live it down."

Male ego. Lovely. I nudged his back. He scooted forward and I slithered around behind him so I could get to his other side. "So you don’t want her to know you can get hurt."

"Not unless she’s hurt, too."

I couldn’t help it, I laughed. He didn’t, but I did. "She must be special, if you feel you have to keep proving yourself with her."

"She is."

Ted had a girlfriend. Surreal. I shifted around, checking out his left shoulder and neck. Only one wound on that side, a miracle considering the rest of him looked like he’d been performing knife tricks with Ray Charles. It didn’t look the same as the others, though. I frowned at it, leaning closer, touching it with the rag to dab away the dried blood. This was less of a slice, and more of a . . .

Oh heck.

Ted had gone immobile. "A bite," he said, voice flat of inflection.

"Yeah," I murmured, sitting back and wadding up the rag.


	2. Chapter 2

"Do you have holy water?"

I winced. I couldn’t help it. This was not going to be pretty. "Sort of," I said, beginning to rise.

I didn’t see him move, I didn’t even realize he had moved. One minute I was getting up, the next minute I was nose-to-nose with Ted, his hand clamped around my wrist tight enough to bruise the skin. His mouth was set in a hard line, and the glitter in his blue eyes told me quite clearly that ‘sort of holy water’ wasn’t going to be good enough, not even close.

"Pagan holy water," I soothed. "I’m not Christian, Ted. Priest-blessed holy water would be less effective in my hands."

He didn’t let go.

"Trust me," I said, meeting his gaze square on.

He had to think about it, which didn’t say much for me. But then, Ted didn’t strike me as a man who gives his trust easily. He finally let go of my wrist. I took that as permission to move. I got up and walked to the door, stepping into my clogs and reaching for my coat. 

"Where are you going?"

I gestured toward the window, toward my herb shop across the street. There are many reasons to love my apartment, and the proximity to my store is only one of them. "To the store," I said. "It’s not like I keep holy water in the house, you know. Besides, you could use some other things I have over there. You’ve lost a lot of blood, god only knows what kind of bugs are breeding in your bloodstream right about now, and I don’t know if you know it or not, but you have a black eye the size of New Brunswick."

He spoke slowly. "The vampire might still be out there, Rachel."

Oh. I really had forgotten. Maybe he was right, maybe I didn’t have a survival instinct. 

He let me off the hook before my face burst into actual flames. "Does anyone else have a key?"

I shook my head. "No, it’s a one-woman operation." But it did start me thinking about who I could call for help. "Do you mind if I call in some backup?"

"Depends. Who?"

"We could call the cops."

That was met with an arched eyebrow. I continued. "Ok, stupid suggestion. But you know, it’s illegal for them to go after you like this."

"Yes, Rachel, I know."

Right. Well, there was one easy possibility, someone who would gladly lend me a hand and wouldn’t be bothered by a little thing like an angry vampire. It was a possibility, but it wasn’t one I was happy with.

Ted had been monitoring my expressions. "What?" he asked.

"Jacob would help," I said.

Ted grimaced, and my hopes rose. He didn’t look any more pleased than I did about asking a werewolf for assistance.

My problem with Jacob, though, wasn’t that he was a werewolf. It was that he’s _Jacob_. In fact, my problems with Jacob were indirectly Ted’s fault. Ted had needed a curse lifted, and I had been the first witch he’d come across who could do the job and would do the job. It involved more use of dark arts than I was comfortable with, and I’m still recovering in a lot of ways.

Someone knocked on the door.

We both looked at it, but only Ted spoke. "It’s your house, Rachel."

Oh yeah. I straightened and headed for the door. I even reminded myself not to look anyone in the eyes.

With the door open, there is a weakness in my shields. It’s deliberately constructed that way. The wards seal when the door is shut. Even if there’s a hole in the door, the weakness is built into the door jamb. As long as the frame meets the door, the wards are solid. When the door is open, some of the wards go away; the one that prevents inside magic from leaking out, for instance.

When I opened the door, it gave me all the leeway I needed to grasp and analyze magical currents. So I knew the man in front of me was a vampire, and he was not a baby one. I locked my eyes firmly on the v-notch in his collar bone. "Yes?" I asked. Polite, aren’t I?

"Rachel Davenport," he said. Said? No, too mild a word. He purred, he caressed. He tasted the letters of my name with his tongue and lips.

It was such a novel sensation, I didn’t notice for a heartbeat or two that it was a vampire trick, a tidy bit of magic designed to bypass the higher brain entirely and go right for the limbic system. Also, it was a bit of magic I hadn’t noticed and my shields hadn't prevented. Dang, I hate vampires. 

If you’re going to work with magic, you have to have a very strong will. Suppressing lust was just one of the fringe benefits. I angled my head, but didn’t look up. "If you do that again, I’ll shut the door in your face."

A hand reached over the vampire’s shoulder, through my wards, and slapped against the door as if I was about to carry through on my threat. He must have been human, or my wards would have nailed him. Thankfully, I didn’t need to react to him. Ted did it for me.

I didn’t move, but a blade as slender as a razor and half the size of my palm flashed over my shoulder, kissing the strands of my hair on its way by, thunking solidly into the shoulder of the human. I pretended to take it all in stride. Oh sure, ‘cause this happens to me every day. "And if he does that again," I said in the same reasonable and polite tone, "he’ll lose his arm."

The human was muscle, big and apparently not too bright. Ted’s knife hadn’t been enough to seriously damage him, but I think that was Ted’s intent. Just enough to get attention without upping the ante too high for us to stay in the game. Muscle Man tried to shove past the vampire, blood soaking through his shirt, eyes on Ted.

He would have had more luck brushing past a dump truck. The vampire didn’t budge, and the muscle man rocked backwards. Boy, was he gonna be in trouble.

"May I help you?" I asked. 

"I want to speak to the man in your apartment."

Speak to? "Certainly. But you may not come in." I glanced back at Ted. He didn’t look happy. Of course, when did he ever? I shifted sideways, just a tad, enough not to block the conversation.

"If you come out now," the vampire said, "I won’t kill your little witch."

Me?! I didn’t dwell. Ted was answering. "If you could kill her, you would have already done it."

"I haven’t tried," the vampire pointed out. "Come now, be reasonable."

"I’m telling you, you have the wrong man. I’m not who you think I am."

I felt like I was eavesdropping, but things were getting good. The vampire laughed. I sent an extra little pop of magic to my wards, though, so if he put any power behind it, I was untouched. Certainly Ted didn’t seem affected. "You broke out of your room, slaughtered your guards, escaped from my stronghold, and survived to reach a place of safety, yet you still deny that you are Death?"

Death? I could hear the capital D but I didn’t understand it. Man, I hate it when I feel left out of important plot points.

"I don’t know what you’re talking about."

The vampire smiled. "There is an easy way of settling the matter," he said. "Let me into your mind."

"No."

"Then you consign those around you to die. Will you remain in hiding while the others in this building are butchered for your stubbornness?"

Ted shrugged a little and said, "You won’t kill them, either. You need to maintain your mask of respectability. All it will take is one phone call to the police, and that is gone for good."

The vampire sighed, annoyed. "Very well. But we are not through. I have not, until now, brought the full focus of my abilities onto you or this place. Be assured that I will. And the night is long."

I moved back, blocking the doorway. "I’ve let you speak with him," I said. "You should go now."

The vampire looked down at me. He was taller than me. I put him at about five-eleven. From what I could see, his hair was dark. Black or brown, I didn’t know. I wasn’t looking up. I could feel the focus of his attention, the gentle press of his magic against my defenses. He was testing them, and me. Neither they nor I faltered, I’m happy to say. 

His voice was a quiet murmur, for my ears alone. "You have chosen strange friends, little witch," he said. "You should ask him who he is, before you begin defending him at the expense of innocent lives."

He turned to leave, taking with him an entourage I hadn’t taken much notice of before. There was another vampire, a male with angry eyes that I recognized from my balcony. A blonde woman followed the vampires. The beefy human with the wounded shoulder went last. I didn’t sigh until the door was closed.

When I turned, Ted was staring at me again. For once, though his expressions were blank, I found I could actually surmise what he was thinking. Now that I knew the stakes, would I throw him out? Now that I had seen the opposition, was I going to back down? Would I, as the vampire suggested, ask him who he was?

But, though I probably couldn’t tell you why, I like Ted. There’s something baseline honest about him. Dealing with Ted is like dealing with a force of nature. He is what he is, a killer. He has his morals and his codes, but you don’t need to understand them. When you’re on the menu, you’ll know.

So all I said was, "Should I call Jacob?"

Ted’s pale eyelashes flickered, and that was all. He had absorbed into his worldview a new shading on his perception of me, and we could move on. "What will he want in exchange for his help?"

Astute. Ted’s astute. My answer was careful. "Nothing from you."

He shrugged. "Then it’s your decision. I don’t like relying on the monsters, not even if it’s to get away from the monsters. But a pack of werewolves could help. I could try making a run for it."

I shook my head. "You’d never make it. They’re watching the building and you’re still bitten. Was that the vampire that bit you?"

A tiny jerk of his head sufficed. It was.

"Then if you’re not warded, he’ll drag you back whether you want to go or not." I mulled over what Jacob would want from me. His pack still lacked a vargamor. He didn’t want any of the truly powerful witches in the city, because he liked being in total control. Could I handle being vargamor? For a limited time, anyway. Doubtless, being Jacob’s vargamor would do nothing for the purity of my soul. The things he’d have me do. . .

But then, what kind of soul would I have if I saved myself at Ted’s expense?

The phone rang as I was reaching for it. Before I could even say ‘hello’, Jacob’s voice blared down the line. "Rachel, what the hell is going on over there?"

"Jeez Jacob, and you wonder why I never return your calls. Hello to you, too." I turned surprised eyes to Ted and shrugged. The timing was too deft to be a coincidence.

"Be amusing later," Jacob said. I could hear crowd noise in the background. He was on his cell phone. "I just got a call from the Master of the City saying that one of his vampires was having trouble extricating someone from your apartment. He’s asking for werewolf help in getting him back, says he’ll owe the pack one if I arrange it."

Yipe. The Master of the City? I had an uneasy flashback to the closing credits of Godzilla vs. Bambi. "Well, that’s about right. They are having trouble. I didn’t know the Master of the City was involved, though." Ted began inspecting his ribs. I gave him a dirty look, but only while he wasn’t looking at me.

"Taxi!" Jacob yelled. I knew that wasn’t for my benefit. "I’m on my way," he said to me.

"I won’t let you have him either, Jacob."

His snort carried loud and clear, even through the slamming of the door. Muffled, I heard him give the cabby my cross streets. "I’m not coming there to take him from you," he said. "I’m coming there to see that you don’t get damaged. I’m not done with you yet."

"I see, so I’ll owe you one, is that it?"

"You’re damned right you will. Six of the other pack members are on their way, they’ll be outside your building. I’m coming into your apartment, so you better fix your damned shields before I get there." He smacked the phone shut, and I got an earful of dead air.

I frowned at my phone. "So, that was Jacob," I said. "He’s on his way, with six of his pack."

I moved to the folding screen set up along the east wall of my apartment. Ted turned to keep me in view. Behind the screen was a long pine table, about waist high to me. It was covered with a long stretch of raw white silk. On the wall behind it was a wooden pentagram. Atop the silk, another pentagram, this one inscribed with a reddish power. It was pointing up, a hint that my last working had been something positive and spiritual. Had it pointed down, it would have been a spell for an undoing or something earthly.

I began fishing through the detritus of spellcasting, selecting out the pieces I wanted, choosing both a thumbnail-sized piece of citrine and bypassing my athame in favor of a feather. I could sense Ted behind me, curious but not wanting to get too close. "I’m going to have to rework my shields a bit," I explained, "or Jacob won’t be able to get in either. Since I don’t want all the wolves in here, I’m going to make it very, very specific."

Ted was looking at the feather in my hand, a long feather as white as moonlight on new snow. One corner of his mouth suggested a smile. Well, why not? He had given it to me, after all.

"Of course," I continued, moving to the center of the apartment, "I don’t want to take them down entirely to redo them. So I’ll just have to be careful. Luckily, I am very good at careful."

I sat. There were still little pieces of glass in my carpet, but they didn’t get through my jeans. I ignored them. I let impressions filter into my brain, acknowledging them so I could forget them. The sound of the traffic three floors below faded away. The cold breeze from the broken window licked across my skin. Hairs rose briefly in answer, but settled down again as I went beyond the notion of ‘cold’. I could smell Ted’s blood, accepted it, let it become a part of my surroundings, and stopped noticing it.

I stretched my awareness out, into the walls of my apartment, sliding through their mere physicality like walking through fog. I could see the spun layers of magic that I had set to shield my home. There were prohibitions and forbiddings, shields that absorbed directed magical energy and shields that blocked the exit of magical energy. Picture the complex, scattered web of a black widow spider and dress it in iridescence. That’s what my shields look like to me.

Carefully, I wove my awareness through the web, stretching out a section of one particular forbidding. The forbidding against werewolves was a relatively new spell, only since February have I needed it. Scanning along it, I made sure that no other spells had tangled up in it. Once I was sure it was clean, I drew it down and into the citrine in my left hand.

It could stay there for now. Jacob was not going to be given permanent access to my apartment, I didn’t care what he thought. I formed an exact picture in my mind, a vivid visualization. Werewolves, I saw, wolves with human souls and humans with wolf eyes. In my mind, their numbers stretched out into darkness. In their center, I imagined one man. I had touched Jacob’s heart, I had fed on his energy. I knew him well. Brown hair, nearly black. Warm blue eyes. Arrogance, pride, humor, patience, determination… I began to sum up Jacob, making him distinct and separate from every other werewolf in the world.

Then I locked Him away from Them. They were Out, he was In. When that image had settled fully into my mind, I lifted the hand containing the swan feather. I sent it all, the image and my energy, down my arm and into the feather. It shivered in my fingers. Opening my eyes, I parted my fingers with exquisite care. The feather spun one lazy revolution, then hovered in mid-air.

I rose, careful still. To my mage sight, the web of my shields met in the feather and flowed back into the walls, floors, and ceiling. That should do it. Moving with more confidence, I turned to locate Ted.

He was standing against the archway that led into my kitchen, one of my sheets in his hand. I hadn’t heard him move, but then I wasn’t paying attention to him. To find the sheet, he would have had to go into my bedroom and search. They were in a cedar chest under the one window in the bedroom, and it meant he’d been snooping.

It also indicated more time had passed than I thought. "What’re you doing with my sheet?" I asked. 

"Waiting for you to finish," he said. He reached behind his back, producing the knife he’d used to cut me with earlier. His wrist flicked, and my sheet was ruined. What the hell, he already owed me for the window. He could replace my sheets, too. When he had finished tearing it into strips, he held them out to me. "Two cracked ribs," he told me. "They need to be bound."

I blinked, then shook my head. "You went through all that with cracked ribs? You must be into pain."

He looked at me. I hate that look. It’s as if his soul steps away from his body for awhile, and you’re left looking at the empty hole it leaves behind. I stopped moving toward him. "No," he answered me. "I’m just used to it."

We stood there for maybe three more heartbeats before I looked away. "Quit looking at me like that," I muttered, continuing my approach. "Gives me the creeps."

His expression softened, and he gave me a warm smile matched with two of the sweetest sparkling blue eyes you’ll ever see.

"Not an improvement," I noted, sardonic. I took up the strips of sheet, each one longer than I am tall. "Not since I know what’s behind it. How do I do this?"

He stretched, though not without care. "I’ll take a deep breath. When I nod, you wind the bandage around me as tight as you can make it. Cover the first with a second. Don’t tie knots, just tuck it in."

I nodded my understanding, but not without wincing. I had never had a cracked rib, but it didn’t take much imagination to know this was going to hurt, and probably worse than pulling glass shards out of him had.

He lifted his arms, hesitating only to say, "Don’t take your time. Just do it."

I nodded again. 

Is it perverse to admit that I noticed his body? Ted doesn’t look like a muscle man, he’s lean and long and he doesn’t look particularly strong. Not until you see him move, anyway. He moves like a cliché, as if he never quite touches the ground, as if he’s prepared to move in a hundred different directions at any given time. So you know there’s strength there.

Everything I saw, now that he wasn’t covered with blood, was muscle. Long, lean, hard muscle. And scars, by the way. How could anyone lead a life that gave them the scars he had?

When I finished tugging the wraps as tight as I could, he was notably paler, but silent through it all. In a way, I was grateful. I didn’t like causing pain even in the cause of a greater good. But his silence tugged at my heart in the way cries never could.

I rose from my crouch, eye to eye with him. He confused me, still. I wanted to ask, now, who he was that the vampires called him Death. I wanted to know where he’d gotten his scars. I wanted to know what had happened to someone’s blond-haired blue-eyed baby boy to turn him into Ted Forrester, professional killer.

He could see it in my expressions. I knew he could, because his eyes turned to ice again, freezing me out. He did not want or appreciate my pity or my willingness to hurt on his behalf. "Don’t," he said, one hard syllable.

But he didn’t frighten me, not now, not in these circumstances. "You want to tell me what to do, Ted, you can probably pull that off," I replied, meeting his gaze. "What you can’t do is tell me what I can or can not feel."

Looking down, his hands and eyes inspected my bandaging job. "It’s not warranted," he said.

That was probably the clumsiest lie he’d ever told in his life. I let it go. "Have a seat," I said. "I’ll fix your eye up while we wait for Jacob to get here."

"What’s between you two, anyway?" he asked, moving obligingly (if stiffly) to the loveseat and ruffling through the pile of t-shirts. The towels were gone, I noticed now, more evidence of Ted’s handiwork while I had been restructuring my wards.

"Prurient curiosity?" I asked, picking up the bottle of witch hazel and what had been the sleeve of one of the t-shirts.

He shrugged, gingerly, wary of his ribs, and carefully slid into a somewhat-faded plain black t-shirt with a handprint-shaped bleached spot. It had always been big on me, having belonged to an ex-boyfriend. Though Ted and I are about the same height, he's broader than I am through the chest. It all worked out. "You’re trusting him," he said, sitting, "but it doesn’t sound like you two are the best of friends." 

Well, he had a point. Since I wasn’t trusting Jacob with just my life, but both of our lives, I tried to explain. "You remember the scene in the barn in February," I said, squirting witch hazel onto the cloth and dabbing it at his eye.

He nodded, but didn’t back away from my proddings.

"Jacob and I aren’t lovers, and never have been. But when I took his energy to try to save Kaspar…" My voice faltered briefly. A failed attempt, that, but only because Ted had shot Kaspar in the head while I was still returning him to the age he had been when the curse was set. "…when we touched like that, it had some side-effects I hadn’t counted on."

"Is that what they’re calling it these days? Side-effects?" 

Oh didn’t I just live to amuse Ted? "Ahem." I slapped the witch hazel cloth over his eye, lifting his right hand and making him hold it there while I prepped another square to deal with his split lip. "Anyway, the problem is that it felt so damned good." 

My eyes unfocused as I tried to explain it, and in doing so had to relive the memory. Again. Even that had more power over me than I liked. My voice softened as my attention moved into the middle distance. "He gave as much as I took," I murmured, not really aware of my audience anymore. "There was no struggle, no fighting it under my control. It flowed from him to me, filling me, making me complete and whole. It was like breathing for the first time, like tasting colors and feeling scents. Like being completely warm, through and through, after a very cold winter. Every moment since then has been life lived in shadows, with only a memory of what it was like, for a short time, to walk in sunlight."

Ted’s voice brought me back. "So what’s the problem?"

I twitched. Refocusing on the matter at hand, I cleaned his lip with the witch hazel. "The problems," I began anew, stressing the plural, "are that one, energy theft is a bad thing. It does ugly things to your soul. Even if it’s willingly donated, it’ll eventually not be enough. It’s like voluntarily making yourself a vampire, requiring the life of others in order to live. Two, this is Jacob we’re talking about. If he ever found out how much I want that connection, he’d hold it over me for the rest of my life. I’d never get free of him."

"So you gave up all that to maintain your independence."

"Of course."

His answer was soft. "Well, good for you."

I looked into his eyes, a little bemused. I wondered who he knew who had given up their independence in exchange for power, but before I could ask, I heard a knock. 

Well, ok, it was more of a battering.

"Rachel!" Jacob hollered in the hall. 

Oh joy. Here we go.


	3. Chapter 3

I picked up my keys on the way to the door, stalling while I could. Now that my wards didn’t exclude him from entering my house, I could feel him standing outside. His irritation had loosened his power, his energy. It pulsed in time with his heartbeat, washing over me like waves over a beach. My own heart skipped a bit, and I had to pause to remember that just because Jacob was inside my house shields, he didn’t have to be inside my personal shields. Closing my eyes, I dumped more concentration into them, until I could no longer feel him like sunlight on my skin.

I opened the door.

I’m 5’8". That’s on the tallish side for American women, considering the average height for American men is 5’10". While there are a lot of people taller than me, there aren’t a lot of people that tower over me. Jacob towers. I didn’t look up.

Before he could push his way in, I shoved the keys at his chest. "I need some things from my store," I said, perhaps more abruptly than I should have. "Get a cardboard box from the store room. In the counter display is a short fat bottle sealed with white wax and a gold-leaf full moon. Behind the counter is a clay jar with the words ‘All-Heal’ on it. Make sure you lock up when you’re through."

Ever met an alpha werewolf that is good at taking orders? Me neither. "I didn’t come all the way up here to be your fucking errand boy, Rachel." His fingers closed around my wrist to push my arm away.

Maybe it was my fault because I hadn’t realized how much energy I had already expended in restructuring my wards and strengthening the filters to keep the vampire from oozing magic all over me. Maybe it was Jacob’s fault for being so irate he was blazing like a sun going nova, or for touching his bare skin to mine.

The air crackled around his fingers, my wrist. Literally. My jaw clenched, teeth gritting together as I struggled with my control. Tiny filaments kept reaching for Jacob, drifting toward the hot pulse of his power like vines growing toward the sun. It was like trying to control an unruly group of four-year olds around a wide-open candy display. Every time I smacked back one hand, three more were stretching out. 

"Just. Do it. Jacob."

He frowned, but snatched the keys from my hand. I didn’t spare breath to explain to him which key was which. There are only five, and one of those is obviously my car key. At least he let go of my wrist to take the keys from me. Then he was gone, and I dropped my forehead against the cool wood of my closed door.

After two breaths, Ted said, "Can you do this?"

It was an honest question, not a facetious one. Would I be able to get through this, to concentrate enough to get us all out of this mess? It was also a fair question.

"Yes," I decided, pushing away from the door. "It just caught me off-guard, that’s all." I decided to throw a question his way. "Any idea on what we do from here?"

"Is Jacob’s pack big enough to stand off all the vampires?"

"I don’t know," I said. "I’ve done my best to limit my contact with all the weres. There are a couple of rats that come in the store, and one leopard. Most of them prefer to go downtown. And Jacob’s weres don’t bug me much these days." I moved to the windows, drawing aside the blinds so I could see out. 

Ted joined me. Together, we watched Jacob cross the street. There were a significant number of loiterers that evening, and you didn’t need to be a resident to know that most of them didn’t fit in. In fact, none of the normal hangers-about were hanging about. See, now, they have survival instincts.

Jacob crossed alone, taking his time at deciding which key unlocked the grate, which key unlocked the door. He even turned on the lights. I couldn’t help but smile, just a little. "He’s not stupid," I murmured, "so that must be arrogance. Supreme indifference to trouble."

Ted was less admiring. "He can rip a mid-sized sedan in two," he said. "He has something to be arrogant about."

I turned my head. Ted’s expression were, as ever, blank. "But you could kill him," I said.

Ted nodded, without looking at me.

Brrr.

To take my mind off it, I pointed out some of the people I know. "There and there. Those two are werewolves. Most of these people, I’ve never seen before. The two against the light pole, I don’t know. Or the man in the car. And the three talking outside the Pakistani grocery store are new to me, except I think the blonde is the woman from the hallway."

"Werewolf in the car. Vampires by the light pole. Two vampires and a human at the grocery store. There are also two werewolves on your stoop. That still leaves one I can’t see from here. I’m guessing he or she is in the alley between your building and the hair salon."

Doesn’t he just piss you off sometimes? "How can you tell which ones are which?" I asked.

He shrugged, a motion unimpeded by his wrapped ribs. "You learn to pick them out of a crowd," he said, watching the people as I watched Jacob poke through my merchandise. He must have been feeling generous, because he explained further. "Weres tend to touch a lot, and they can’t stand still long. They look around, and if you watch you can see their nostrils widen as they scent the air. The cat varieties especially will breathe with their mouths open, so they can taste scents. Vampires are quieter, more still and self-contained."

I forgot to watch Jacob, instead watching the werewolves and vampires lurking outside my apartment building. Intrigued, I realized that he was right. If I looked carefully, I could see the barely-contained energy of the shifters manifesting itself in their frequent movements, in their constant touching of each other. The vampires, even the ones standing together, looked alone.

"Is the human a witch?" he asked me.

I looked over at her, standing as she was between two vampires. "I can’t tell," I said. "My wards keep me in as much as they keep other people out. I’d have to go out onto the fire escape. But probably not."

"Probably not?"

"Most witches can’t tolerate being around vampires. Their energies are… well, dead. For all that your eyes tell you you’re looking at a person, your magical senses keep screaming at you that it’s a corpse. I don’t know if I can even find the words to tell you how wrong they feel."

He was interested in that. God alone knows why. "Most, you said."

I nodded, arms folding as I watched to make sure Jacob locked everything up tight. "There are a few necromancers running around, but they’re incredibly rare. There are animators, too, who're a little more common than that. Maybe one in every twenty or thirty thousand witches can manipulate death energy, and most of those don’t get beyond animating corpses for Halloween parties. Mind you, some witches are just masochistic and don’t seem to mind the feeling that something’s slithering around under their skin. I hear some of them are weak enough that they can’t tell the difference between types of energy, but even I’m strong enough to do that."

Ted moved away from the window, closing the blind again. I tugged my head back before the blind could bonk me on the nose. "That begs the question, then," he said, "of what a human’s doing out there."

I frowned, realizing he was right. Again. But the door opened, and Jacob stepped in with a cardboard box in hand. He tossed my keys on the half-moon table near the door. "Quite a block party you have out there," he said.

Much to my relief, my second Jacob exposure was more controlled than the first. I’d just have to remember not to touch him anytime in the immediate future. "We saw," I said, crossing to him to take the two small bottles out of the large box. "Who was that woman with the two vamps by the grocery store?"

"Elisa Wales, " he said. "She—" He stopped. I looked up from my inspection of the bottles and found him staring. I followed his gaze and realized he was watching a foot-long swan feather hover in midair. 

I grinned. Can you blame me? "She what, Jacob?"

"Uh… She’s Cristan’s human servant." He tried to put the feather out of his mind. 

I didn’t see what the big deal was. He’s seen me do more spectacular magic than that. Now if I could make a city bus float, THAT would be something. I sat on the loveseat, motioning Ted down beside me.

"Cristan’s not the Master of the City," Ted said, sitting obediently.

I cracked open the jar of All-Heal. It’s a very nice balm, honey-based. Ask any ancient Egyptian; wild honey kills bacteria and prevents infection. That’s why pure honey never goes bad. Add in the yarrow and marigold, and Ted was going to smell rather tasty by the end of this.

Jacob shrugged. "He’s not, but in a city the size of New York, even the helpers need helpers. Take it from me." 

We did.

"I hate to be repetitive," I said, smearing the balm into Ted’s cuts, "but what do we do now?"

Jacob scratched his neck. "Still not willing to give him up?"

"Out of the question," I said.

"The vampires know by now that the werewolves are on your side. So let’s start there. Will the werewolves stay on your side, Rachel?"

Anger sizzled up my spine, and I slid my eyes toward Jacob. He looked impassive (and big) standing there in the middle of my living room, arms folded. "I thought one paid the piper when the tune was finished," I said, calmer than I felt as I returned my attention to Ted’s wounds. "But all right. What’s your price for helping us, and how total will your help be?"

Jacob must have been a failure as a negotiator. Or maybe he knew I didn’t have the patience for it. "You become my vargamor, and the help will be total."

My fingertip slid down Ted’s cheek as I applied the ointment to a cut. His eyes met mine. He and Jacob both have blue eyes, but Ted’s were infinitely more reflective. I saw only myself there. The choice, as he had promised me, was mine.

"I don’t even know what a vargamor does," I said. 

"You help the pack control its energy," he replied. "You assist me in pack ceremonies. You don’t get a say in what the pack does, but you’re treated as one of us."

Doesn’t sound too bad, does it? Especially that ‘help the pack control its energies’ bit. In fact it sounded far too much like a free lunch, and everyone knows what Heinlein had to say on the subject of free lunches.

"For how long?" I asked.

From the corner of my eye, I could see Jacob grin. "Until after the spring ceremony. If you still want to leave then, you can."

His unspoken assertion was that I wouldn’t want to. He even had a point; I had enough trouble keeping my hungry little fingers out of Jacob’s energy. Once I’d had free access to it for, what, seven months, would I be able to give it up?

I sighed, thinking it over as I watched Ted’s wounds soak in the balm. "You’re a lot of trouble, you know that?"

"I’ve heard it before," Ted replied.

"Do you see any alternatives?"

He shrugged. "I'm not even sure a pack of werewolves is going to be enough," he said. "But you could always have him killed after you agree."

Jacob's energy scaled rapidly upwards. My hand and head snapped toward him. "No!" I shouted. My conscious mind chose to stop him from shifting, my unconscious mind chose how.

Power whipcracked from Jacob to me, sizzled through the air between us, crashed over me, into me, through me. Involuntarily, my other arm stretched out tight, my back arched, my mouth dropped open. I hung there, suspended, caught like a grounding rod in a lightning strike. My mind lagged behind the event; I was scrambling to keep up. There was no denying it now, no turning it back or refusing it. It would fry me like a bug if I tried.

I stored what I could. That took all of about a nanosecond. I'm just not built to hold that kind of power. The rest of it, I tried frantically shunting away, turning it into anything I could. My shields doubled, trebled. I didn't stop until I smelled an acrid stench. Something in the walls, in the electrical system? I didn't know, and my outer senses weren't functioning all that well. I needed new channels for it.

I found them in Jacob. His tie to me gave me a tie to him, and through him I sensed pools of dormancy, places that could take the energy that threatened to sear me inside out. With a thought, I sent it sweeping back through Jacob and out.

Abruptly, I was on the floor, staring at my ceiling in a mostly-dark room. At first, my nerve endings were still shrieking with the after-effects of the power exchange. I wasn't sure how I'd gotten down there, until I was able to focus on Ted standing over me, a dim shadow. "Mnh?" I said.

He offered me a hand. I stared at it for a minute, not yet comprehending. He bent over and gripped my upper arm, hauling me upright. I was even able to help him, once I figured out which way was, in fact, up.

Slowly, he let go, watching me intently as I wobbled. When I remained upright, he relaxed. My brain finally got the message that my face stung, and my jaw was killing me. I winced, raising a hand to touch it gingerly.

"The slap didn't work," Ted said. "I figured an uppercut would."

"Yeah," I said, coherent again. "Thanks. I think." I looked around, and realized the room wasn't dim because something was wrong with my eyes. "Why's it so dark in here?"

"The lightbulbs started exploding," he said. "That's when I tried knocking you out."

"Where's Jacob?"

He nodded his head toward the door. "He left."

"Why?"

"Listen."

I did. Howls, screams, and loud thuds. As quickly as I could manage, I crossed to the window and looked out. Sure enough, one hell of a fight was going on in the street below. It was hard to follow, actually. They were just moving too damned fast. 

Two wolves had already killed one vampire, and were shredding what was left. Elisa Wales, the human servant, was holding her own against one more. Three other vampires were cornered by three more wolves that flowed in and out again, sometimes biting, sometimes missing as the vampires slid aside. It was kaleidoscopic, dizzying.

A scream brought my attention around. Elisa was down, likely dead given the amounts of blood I could see. The other two wolves left off the vampire's corpse and joined their packmates in harassing the three clustered vampires.

Then Jacob stepped into the streetlight. Even behind my wards, strengthened to obsidian hardness as they were, I could feel him. What had he done to me, I wondered. I felt him reach for the wolves, suck them back into him, call them. 

Six werewolves in full fight mode, lost to blood lust, and Jacob yanked them up by the short hairs. I wished I wasn't so impressed by him.

Ted spoke. "About the time the lightbulbs burst, the screaming and howling started. I knocked you backwards. Jacob left."

"Oh god," I whispered, turning away from the sight. I'd done that. Well, we had, Jacob and me. When I sent his energy back through him, I must have touched his pack. The ones nearest me had shifted forms. Which meant some of them farther away from me must have done the same thing. 

When I started for the door, Ted was right on my heels.


	4. Chapter 4

I hadn't stopped to put on shoes, but cold pavement was the least of my worries. By the time I reached the street, things had settled down. Relatively. Jacob had removed his shirt and sweater, and two of the now-human female weres were donning them. The four male weres were naked. The vampires had vanished, and had taken the body of Elisa Wales with them. The dead vampire… I wouldn't have recognized it as a human being, if it hadn't been for one hand sticking out of the bloody pile of clothes and what I assumed were innards. I stared. I couldn't help it. There was so much blood.

Jacob grabbed my arms, giving me one hard shake. "Rachel," he snapped. "Focus. I don't have time to track down the rest."

I tried to stop staring at the dead vampire, at the pile of meat that used to be a person. I didn't want to think that the body used to have a name. "Yes," I said, forcing my eyes up to meet Jacob's. "Yes," I said again, a little firmer. "I understand." I could vomit later.

He waited. But not long. "Well?!" he demanded.

"I … I don't know." Having fed on Jacob's energies already, the hunger, the need just wasn't there. Trying to reach for it was like pushing through pudding. The craving that had been inside me was satiated, disinterested.

"I don't have time for this shit," he snarled. One of his hands wrapped around the back of my neck. He pulled me hard against him, dropped his head, and covered my mouth with his. What I knew I had to take but couldn't, Jacob forced on me. Channels already seared raw by our last exchange screamed inside me as he ripped through me, slamming his power down my throat.

Rachel! I heard his voice echoing inside me. Find them. Save them! Somewhere in the city, members of his pack were going wild.

At least I knew what to look for this time. Reaching back through Jacob, I felt the separate sensations of his pack. Some were quiescent, dark, sleeping. Others were flame-bright, tinged with red. There weren't many, maybe four. Here, I thought to Jacob. These.

Then it was his turn. He followed me to the distant members of his pack, reached for them, called them back the way he had the others. I supported him, using his power and my ability to extend his talent. It wasn’t seamless. It wasn't effortless. But it worked.

I felt him withdraw, pull back into himself. Other senses began functioning again. His tongue swept lightly across the soft inside of my lips, stroked my tongue, making me shiver. Against the back of my neck, his touch gentled, fingers caressing instead of bruising. His other hand wrapped around my waist, shifting my hips against his and it was plain that he was enjoying himself. I sighed softly into his mouth and let my hands play across the bare, hard muscles of his chest. Another hand slid between my thighs.

Wait a minute. Didn't that make three hands?

I yanked back from the kiss, enough to look down. We were surrounded by the six weres, all in human shape. They writhed against us, nuzzling, caressing, touching. One man rubbed his cheek against my hip, leaving behind a long smear of blood on the denim of my jeans. As I stared, a gobbet of meat fell from his chin to plop on my bare foot.

Repulsed, I frantically shook it off and tried to free myself, but there was nowhere to go. I was held by Jacob, and enclosed by the pressure of bodies all around. "Jacob," I said, beginning to panic. He growled softly, eyes closed. His hand pulled my head back, and he nuzzled my throat, licked it once. He seemed to like the panic. "Ted!"

I caught sight of Ted. He walked around the pile of weres, considering them while Jacob's teeth caught the skin of my neck. Ted didn't have a gun, I knew that. I don't know what I expected him to do. He paused, cocked his head. I couldn't quite see what he was looking at. Then he kicked out.

Did I mention before that Ted was wearing cowboy boots? Pointy cowboy boots, these. I don’t care what you are, when a pointy-toed cowboy boot slams into your tailbone, you notice.

Someone yelped, a strangled sort of yowling sound really. The entire pile broke up, and far too much attention shifted to Ted. He was already several steps away, because he's smart and all. I could feel them about to leap for him. Without thinking, I reached through Jacob again and stopped them cold.

They stopped, heads pivoting towards me in shock. I looked up at Jacob and opened my mouth to speak. The utter fury in his blue eyes stopped me cold. When his backhand landed, I flew backwards and into a parked car.

I didn't pass out, and wasn't sure why I just couldn't. I really wanted to. All I could hear was the roaring in my ears, and my vision was dimming out, sparkled with little flecks of light. If I survived this night, I was going to look like I'd had a date with Mike Tyson. And a bad date at that.

Jacob hauled me upright. I dangled from his hand like a landed trout. "Never," he growled, shaking me, "never do that again. They are not your pack, Rachel, they are not your toys to play with. I give the orders. I do!"

"Yeah," I mumbled. "You give the orders. Check." He dropped me. I staggered, but didn't fall. Chalk one up for the witch. Carefully, I leaned around Jacob to look at Ted. He was fine. Swell.

"We better get upstairs," Ted said. "Cops are coming."

I could hear sirens getting closer. It surprised me, frankly. Cops weren't too eager to respond to calls from this area of the city. Jacob gave quiet orders, and the werewolves sank back into the darkness. He turned to me.

"I have to go," he said. "I have to see what they did, whose ass needs pulling out of the fire. Are you gonna be ok for a few hours, or should I have someone come over?"

I worked my jaw a little, making sure it wasn't going to fall off. "Yeah," I mumbled. "We'll be fine." With a sigh, I gestured upwards. "Those shields can handle anything they can dish out. Besides, we've still got his bite to deal with. Go."

Jacob nodded and headed off down the street. Objectively, it was a rather nice sight. He should always go around without a shirt.

Ted tugged on my arm, leading me back into the building. "If Cristan's dead," he said, "wouldn't I be free from his bite?"

A good point. "I don't know," I said. "I've never made much of a study of vampires. I only know the basics: don't look them in the eyes, kill them with a stake through the heart, chop off their heads, that kind of thing." I managed the stairs, but not well. I really hoped no one else would slug me. My head wasn't firmly attached anymore. "We should cleanse the bite, in case he didn't die when his servant did."

Ted didn't look happy, but he nodded. Well, I wouldn't have been happy about it either.

Back in the apartment, I picked up the holy water from the coffee table. I had meant to rip up the cardboard box and tape it over the window, but things kept coming up. The apartment was cold and dark, and I shivered. "You ready?" I asked, turning toward Ted.

He frowned. I didn’t blame him. Not only was the prospect of having holy water dripped on his bite mark an unpleasant one, but the clear-glass bottle revealed a substance not at all reminiscent of pure, clean water. "What’s in there?" he asked. 

Nice to know he could be curious. I tilted the bottle, causing the liquid to glitter in the faint light from the kitchen ceiling light. "Rain water gathered at the dawn of Summer solstice," I said, "blessed in a full-circle ceremony under three consecutive full moons, combined with salt harvested from the ocean and flakes of silver, blended with a wand of holly and sealed with blessed wax in a hand-blown bottle."

He blinked once, not in surprise or consternation. It was a physical twitch that seemed to signify he was storing the definition away. Privately, I bet he could later recall it word for word. Did he want the recipe for something? "It's for healing," I said firmly. "There are cheaper versions, but I figured I'd go right for extravagant."

He followed me into the bathroom. That light was still working, too, like the kitchen light. Must have been a localized effect, limited to the living room. That was nice to know. At least I wouldn't have to worry about shorting out a city block if it happened again.

I spread a towel over the edge of the tub and sat next to it. Looking up at Ted, I nibbled on my lower lip. "Should I tie you up or something?"

He spiked an eyebrow at me.

"I'm not being kinky. I'm just … Look, I've been hit enough for one night."

"I can control myself," he said with a glimmer of amusement. "And you don’t get to tie me up."

I should have left it there, but I wanted to be sure he knew what he was getting himself into. "I've never done this before, but I've heard about it. It's gonna hurt, Ted. Bad."

He took off the shirt he'd borrowed from me, no longer seeming to mind his ribs. "I know," he said. "I've had it done before."

God. I couldn't help myself. Softly, I asked, "How many times?"

He knelt, stared at the tub. "After the first one, does it matter?"

He was right. It didn't.

 

When the drops of holy water ran clear over his skin, I stoppered the bottle. I didn't speak. I couldn't, even if there had been anything to say. I got up and left the bathroom, leaving him clinging to the bathtub, hearing his harsh breathing echo behind me. I figured he'd want time to pull himself together. I know I wanted it. Time to clear my ears of the sound of sizzling flesh and muffled screams. Time to clear my nose of the stench of burnt meat.

While I had time, I broke apart the box and used duct tape to secure it over the window. Almost instantly, the temperature began to rise in the apartment. I left the lights out; I wasn't sure I had enough lightbulbs anyway. Candlelight seemed gentler, and I had plenty of those in holders scattered around the room.

Ted still hadn't come out after I lit the candles. I checked the time and found that it was almost midnight. It seemed both an absurdly short time since Ted had crashed into my living room, and not nearly enough time. As I moved into the kitchen, I heard water running into the bathroom sink.

I made up an ice pack for my jaw. It and my head both ached all out of proportion to the injury, but then I'd never really been hit in the face before. I put the kettle on the stove and opened the pantry. Three shelves were dedicated to herbs, mostly the ones I used in tea and cooking. The medicinal ones had green labels, the cooking herbs had white labels. It's the Virgo in me. I didn't know if Ted liked tea, but I figured he could use it. The only other hot beverage I had was coffee, and caffeine wasn't something he needed.

As the water heated, I plucked down jars of herbs and prepared two tea balls, one for him and one for me. His for nerves and healing, mine for nerves, a headache, and an upset stomach. I hesitated over adding valerian to Ted's tea, fearing at first that it would make him sleepy. But I was pretty sure that he'd burn off any narcotic effects before they could do more than soothe.

"Jacob's not back yet?" Ted asked from behind me. I didn't jump, though I hadn't heard him.

His voice sounded normal, if a little raw in the throat. I took down a jar of honey, deciding to use that for sweetener. It would help. "No," I said, trying to match his tone. "It really hasn't been that long. The wolves are pretty scattered. There's no telling how far he had to go to check in on them all."

"I could go now," he said. "Now that I'm not bitten, and no one's watching the apartment. I could get out."

I hadn't considered that. "I suppose you could," I said, spooning a lump of honey into his cup. "Where would you go?"

"My things are at the hotel." He went silent, pondered. Ted didn't, to my knowledge, usually think out loud. I watched the tea steep. 

"Can you leave it?"

"No. There are some things there I'd rather not leave for the maids to find."

I didn't ask what. "We'll think of something. Maybe one of the wolves could get your things."

"The vamps are probably in the room anyway, waiting for me to go back to it. That's where I was when they nabbed me."

I handed him the teacup, not looking up as I did so. My hands were shaking, and the tea ball rattled slightly. I didn't let go until he tugged at it.

He sniffed the cup. Hibiscus was the primary ingredient; it turned the tea bright red-pink and probably wasn't the best color at the moment. But it did have some Vitamin C, and was one of the few tastes that could overpower the valerian. I babbled all that at him, though he hadn't asked.

He did have a question, though, which he asked after a pause. "Are you all right?"

Finally, I looked up. "No," I said. "Fuck, I'm so not all right, I don't know where to begin." I clamped my hands onto the countertop. "First there was the whole window thing. Then the vampire at my door. Jacob. The power exchange. Getting decked. Then the fight, the kissing, getting hit again, then…" I gestured toward the bathroom. "That." 

I inhaled sharply, not wanting my tears to well up now, and looked away from Ted. "I've never seen anyone go through what you just went through, and if you were anyone else. . ." I didn't finish the thought. He wasn't anyone else. There was no way to comfort someone like him. "So all I can do is make you tea. Drink the damned tea, Ted."

For a moment, he didn't move. Peripherally, I saw him lift the cup. He sipped. I didn't move yet, not even to pick up my own cup. He turned and moved into the candlelit living room, sipping his tea again.

I sighed. "Me, me, me," I whispered. "It's all about me." I picked up my cup and, holding my ice pack to my face, followed him. At least the relative darkness would hide some of my expressions.

I changed the topic as I entered the living room. "Should I call Jacob?"

He sat, not on the loveseat which had been getting most of the attention that night, but on the solitary chair to the left of the loveseat. The one I'd been in when this all started. "Not yet," he said. "He's done enough for now. If we need him again, we can call him."

"What if he needs us?"

Ted watched the trio of fat amber-colored candles on the coffee table as I sat on the loveseat. "That's his problem," he said.

Silence. It wasn't a comfortable one, either.

"Why does it bother you so much when I want to take care of you?" I asked abruptly. "Like before, when I wrapped your ribs and you went all iceman on me. And just now, in the kitchen."

It takes a lot for any set of eyes to look cold in candlelight, but, hey, this was Ted. He managed. "You're making all the wrong assumptions," he said, as if that answered my questions.

I blinked. "Like what?"

His response was harsh. "Like that I need or want your care," he said, emphasizing the final word just enough for me to catch it. "I needed a diversion, an ally to get me away from the vampires. And, if necessary, a sacrificial lamb. There are other people I could have gone to in this city, but none who would have helped me without recompense. None of them would sacrifice themselves for me. And I needed someone who would be that stupid."

Oh. It hurt, it actually hurt. I chewed on my lower lip, looking down at my tea. "I knew that at the beginning of the night, I really did. But somewhere along the line, I guess I thought things had changed. Maybe shared danger really does create some kind of bond. At least, a bond I felt." Man, this was awkward. "But you know I'm still going to help you however I can."

"Yeah," he said into his cup. "I know."

So why did it feel derogatory when he said it? I was angry over it, but it didn't change anything. I helped him because he had asked, because I could. I didn't help only people who were grateful to me. I didn't help just those people who were nice to me. Karma doesn't work that way. 

Of course, that didn't mean I had to take his shit, either. "Bite me, Ted," I snapped. "If you wanna take advantage of my white-hat syndrome, go ahead. But I'll be damned if I'll let you sneer at the very trait that saved your lily-white ass."

A muscle slid over his jaw. "Are you through?" he asked.

"Yes," I grumbled, putting the ice pack against my jaw again. Well, neither one of us was in the best of moods at that point. I decided to cut him some slack; after all, he hadn't once stabbed me while I was drizzling holy water on his bite mark. Down to business. "The vampires think you're someone you're not," I said. "The one at my door, Cristan? He wanted in your mind to prove to himself that you're not."

Ted was silent.

"So what we need to do is find a way to convince them you're you, and not…Death. Who's Death? I mean, besides the obvious."

He took a drink of his tea. I couldn't tell if he liked it. I didn’t care if he did or not. It was medicinal, it would help him. "An assassin. He's killed a lot of them."

"No wonder they got you confused," I muttered, drinking my own tea, taking my own medicine. "And you don’t want them in your mind just because you don't want them in your mind? What if someone went with them? Like a… a chaperone."

He shook his head once. "No," he said, flat.

Exasperated, I slammed my teacup down. "Why not? All they want is your identity confirmed. Hell, I know a good round dozen telepaths that can see to it that's all the information they get. If they try for more, the telepath can alert me and Jacob, and we can end it there."

His eyes rose to me. I caught my breath, my muscles tensing. From irritable and exasperated to alarmed and apprehensive in seconds. It was a record. This wasn't the flat nothingness I usually saw in Ted. This was something glittering, alive, and almost hungry.

When I had first met Ted, he had passed through the wards on my shop. The wards had told me he was a killer. At the time, the impression I got was that of someone who killed because it was what he did, not because it was what he wanted to do. I had thought Ted akin to a gun. It kills because that's its entire purpose. I thought there was no emotion involved.

Now I knew I was wrong. Knew it, from head to heart and back. I was stuck in my apartment with a man who loved killing, who needed it the way I needed oxygen. It was his passion, his hobby, his art.

"Because I am Death," he said.

He didn't blink. I didn't blink. 

"Then why shouldn't I let them have you?" I asked into the candlelit darkness.

He didn't answer for a moment. He just kept looking at me. I could hear the ice melting in the ice pack, things were so quiet in the apartment. Slowly, he tilted his head. "Maybe," he mused, "you should start calling me Edward."

I was pretty sure it was a non-sequitur, but the way he said it carried the weight of menace. That and the faint smile that just barely touched his mouth. Something significant was happening, I was sure of it, but I had no idea what it was. Quietly, carefully, I began to craft the beginnings of a spell. If I needed to, I could probably short out his nervous system for a brief period. Enough to make it to the door.

He didn't stop smiling. He didn't move at all. So why did I suddenly notice that the cup of steaming hot tea was still in his hands? Why did it suddenly occur to me that he had a knife hidden on him somewhere, and I didn't know where?

The phone rang. I sprang up to answer it, before I had to confront whatever Ted was contemplating. My fingers fumbled the receiver, and it took a minute for me to get it to my ear. "Hello?"

"Little witch," an unfamiliar male voice greeted. "You have something I want."

"Who is this?"

"Gideon."

I took my newfound case of heebie-jeebies out on my caller. "Yeah, well, Gideon, I have something a lotta people want. What makes you so special?"

"Because you're going to give him to me."

"And what makes you think that?"

"I have something you want as well." I heard a faint rustling as the phone was moved, then heard a long shriek, high-pitched, female. Pain and terror rode down the wires to me, as clearly as if I'd been in the room. Then there was the rustle again. "Do you hear?"

"I hear." I frowned. "Who is that?"

"Don't you know, vargamor? That is your lupa. Bring me the man. I will let her go." He hung up the phone before I could answer.

I eyed the receiver. Lupa. Female counterpart to the Ulfric. Jacob's mate. I didn't even know he had one. Jacob was not going to be pleased. The hole I had started digging was just getting deeper and deeper, spreading to encompass more and more people.

But of course, it wasn't my hole at all. It was Ted's. I looked over at him to find him occupied with his tea. "The vampires have kidnapped Jacob's lupa," I told him, not bothering to explain the term. "They'll trade her for you."

"That should help you answer your question," he said, still not looking at me. "Why shouldn't you let them have me?"

"Who's Gideon?"

"The Master of the City, by all accounts."

Of course. I knew that. I'd seen him on television often enough. I scrubbed my hands across my face and into my hair, where I left them for a few minutes. This was all so far out of my ballpark, I wasn't even sure it was in the same zip code with me. In the space of a few hours, I had gone from being a minor witch with little power but a lot of skill to being the vargamor and personal pet of the city's Ulfric, having tea with a killer that even the vampires were afraid of, and getting personal phone calls from the Master of the City. I had to somehow come up with a plan that would save the killer, keep the Ulfric from going apeshit, rescue a lupa I'd never met, and not piss off the Master of the City doing it. 

I started to laugh.

Ted glanced over. I think he was making sure I wasn't hysterical, but I wasn't. It was just my sense of the absurd coming to the fore, just me seeing how ridiculous the entire situation had become. How could I not laugh? It was that or start screaming.

I stalked over to stand in front of Ted, hands on my hips. He looked up at me without raising his face, just angled his eyes my way. He sat there, waiting for me to do whatever it was I was going to do. I looked down at him, at his empty blue eyes.

"You said that maybe I should start calling you Edward," I said.

He didn't answer.

"Is Edward your real name?"

"Real as any other," he said.

I pulled the coffee table over and sat on it, cross-legged, in front of Ted. "Tell me about Ted Forrester," I said. "I have a plan."


	5. Chapter 5

Any right-thinking person would have been terrified of that, but once I explained it to Ted, he went along with it.

Ok, no, it wasn't that easy. It took half an hour to convince him I could do it, and almost as much time to convince him I could undo it in the end. He damned near cut my throat at one point. But finally, he saw the logic and agreed. Fortunately, the sun didn't start to rise in October until after six a.m., so we had time to get this all done in one night.

I called Jacob and told him about his lupa. He already knew. We were supposed to meet them at Apollonius Auction House, a firm that dealt exclusively in magical artifacts. I had once applied for a job there as a Magical Restorations apprentice, but I got beat out by a Harvard Magical Studies graduate. Overachievers really piss me off.

Jacob sent over three of his pack to escort us, after they stopped by the hotel and picked up Ted's luggage. It was almost four in the morning by the time we were ready, but I was satisfied and Ted seemed… well, Ted. I got dressed in something a little more suitable for meeting the Master of the City.

Ted donned a button-down black shirt with a black leather vest over it, a pair of black jeans, and his cowboy boots. I had put on a pair of black stretchy pants that zipped up the hip and flared out slightly at the ankles, a black tube top that knotted between my breasts, black boots with a chunky heel, and a black leather biker jacket. We looked like we were going to Jerry Garcia's funeral.

Ted got armed, so I did too. He was hiding guns in places that shouldn't have been able to hold guns. I slid bracelets on my wrists; on my right wrist, I wore a bracelet of chunks of quartz crystal threaded through elastic, on my left was round hematite beads.

I headed for the door, but Ted stopped me. Not by touching me, but by blocking my way with a gun. He wasn't pointing it at me, he was offering it to me. I stared at it, then looked up at him. All I knew about guns was that they made loud noises and existed for the sole purpose of killing human beings. "No," I said.

One corner of his mouth curved up. "You sure?"

I hesitated. "I don't know how to use one."

"Yes you do."

Yes, I did. I took it from him, dropped the magazine out and checked it. Fifteen shot modification, and that wasn't street legal. I pulled back the slide, made sure the barrel was clean, then let it snap shut. I slapped the magazine back in and chambered a round. "Okay," I said, tucking it at the small of my back and trying not to think about what I'd done. "Let's go."

Two of the wolves were female, and clad in matching evening gowns. The gowns were low-necked and barely stayed on courtesy of thin spaghetti straps. The silk fabric shifted like shadow on water, clinging to breast and hip and long, long legs. One woman wore silver, one wore white. The other wolf, the man, was wearing a black leather trenchcoat. I could see his bare chest under it, but if he had any pants on, I couldn't tell. I hoped so. I didn't want to get flashed at an inopportune moment.

"Wow," I said to the female weres as we slid into the car, the two women in the front, Ted and me and the male in the back. "Nice getups. I feel underdressed."

The driver caught my eye in the rearview mirror, but didn't respond. She wasn't happy. The other turned a bit, as much as the seatbelt permitted, and said, "They look nice, but mostly they're just easy to get out of."

Oh. Yeah. Shifters. I got it.

"Ditto," said the man next to me, flicking a finger over the collar of his coat. "I'm Alec, by the way. The one in silver is my sister, Jen, and our driver tonight is the lovely Chelsea."

Introductions all around. I wondered how brother and sister came to both be wolves, but it didn't seem polite to ask. "Did Jacob tell you why we're going?"

The lovely Chelsea snorted in a not-so-lovely fashion. Alec answered with greater eloquence. "Not really. Jacob's not the explaining type."

Wonderful. I filled them in as best I could while we drove, leaving out some of the key details. The less they knew on some scores, the better.

Ted lounged next to me, relaxed as he could be. "I like this plan," I told him. "I like this plan, and I'll tell you why. I like this plan because you have to keep me alive."

He chuckled slightly. "You do your part," he said in that faint Southwestern drawl, "and I'll do mine."

I started running over the plan and precautions in my head. I hoped we'd done everything we could do.

"I've been wondering something," Ted said.

"What's that?" I asked absently.

"I thought you had to be touching Jacob to share power with him."

"Maybe I don't," I said. "It's not something I've done a lot. Anyway, I had to do something. You picked a bad time to make a joke about killing him."

"I wasn't kidding."

I spun on the car seat and reached for the overhead light, snapping it on and scrutinizing Ted's expressions. I could taste my pulse, feel it in my tongue. "What did you say?" I asked.

He frowned slightly. "I'm a bounty hunter, Rachel. Killing weres is what I do."

Chelsea slammed on the brakes, throwing my shoulder against the front seat. "Chels!" Alec said, objecting to the rough treatment.

She bounced off the curb and turned to face us while I was righting myself. "This motherfucker kills our kind, and we're helping him?"

My skin prickled, hairs spiking upward as wolf energy filled the car. I expected to hear the metal frame groan. Chelsea's eyes had gone amber-bright, the wolf inside her moving closer to the surface. Jen touched her arm lightly, but Chelsea shook her off.

I risked a quick glance at Ted. He was still lounging back, but I could see what Chelsea couldn't. He had a gun in his lap. No wonder he was so relaxed now; he was armed. I hadn't seen him draw the gun, but the car was about to get bloody.

I held a hand out to both of them like a referee at a prize fight. "Ease down, everyone," I ordered. Not that they had to listen, but I tried to sound as authoritative as possible. At least I got their attention. 

"You," I said to Chelsea, "are helping because the vampires have your lupa and right now they're more an enemy than Ted. And you're helping because I'm your vargamor and you don't want to piss me off. And you're helping because if you don't, Jacob's gonna knock your head into another zip code and I'm being literal."

Three good points, one of which she disputed. "You're not my vargamor," she said.

"I will be after tonight."

Alec reached out to stroke her shoulder, and Jen touched her arm again. This time, she permitted the contact. I felt the wolf energy shift between the three of them, like a brush of cheek to cheek. I was tempted to tap into it, but it was a vague yearning, like when the dessert cart rolls by. "Let's just go, ok, Chelsea?" Alec asked.

Soothed somewhat by the contact, if not exactly chipper, Chelsea turned around and hit the gas. We peeled back into traffic, leaving behind a strip of rubber. Ted turned the overhead light off.

Finally, I sat back in my seat and sighed.

"Don't mind Chelsea," Alec said. "She's just in a bad mood. She's already in for it for letting the lupa get taken."

"I can hear you, you know," Chelsea growled.

Alec ignored the interruption. "She's sort of Katherine's bodyguard," he clarified. "They were fighting off the vamps when … " He shrugged. "She shifted. Hadn't meant to, but she lost control. While she was busy changing, the vamps took advantage of the distraction and grabbed Katherine."

Which meant that was my fault, too and Jacob would know it. Katherine was definitely on the must-rescue list. Crap. "So, does that make her dominant to you two?" It wouldn't have surprised me. Chelsea had enough oomph in her to be one of the dominants in the pack.

He grinned at me. It was a nice grin. I had to admit he was kind of cute. His eyes were that deep, dark brown that looks almost black, but his hair was lighter than mine. It was a honey-blond shade with lighter highlights and was longer than shoulder length. He had dimples, too, I saw now. How do you dislike someone with dimples? "She is over Jen," he replied.

"Not now, Alec," Chelsea warned.

He flapped a hand at her, acknowledging the warning, but answered me. "Chelsea has a rank I don't have. I don't want it, either. But it's a matter of debate, which of us is stronger."

Chelsea snorted again. That silk dress just kept looking more and more out of place on her.

When the car stopped again, we were there.

Apollonius of Tyana was a figure from ancient Greece, considered a contemporary of Christ. He acquired a great reputation as a magician, doing all sorts of nifty things that were de rigueur for magicians of his day; he brought the dead back to life, that kind of thing. One of the more notable things he did was prevent one of his students from unknowingly marrying a vampire.

There was irony there, but it was subtle.

The lobby was done up in Grecian finery. Columns here, columns there. Marble floor. Marble busts of philosophers and playwrights. Drapes of silk. Statues. Y'know… Ancient Greece Redux.

The guards weren't in costume, however, or at least not in any costume other than 20th Century Security Guard. They stood calmly at the reception desk. Nothing blocked us from going around them; the elevator banks were in plain sight. But I could feel something there, something not altogether pleasant roiling in the air, just hoping I'd try to make a break for it.

"Welcome to Apollonius Auction House," one of the guards said in a tone that was less than welcoming. "In a moment, you'll proceed to the lower levels. Before you go, I'll need you, Ms. Davenport, to place your hand on the crystal pad there."

I looked. Sure enough, there was a flat panel of what looked to be quartz crystal inset into the desk. I cocked my head, and checked it out with a whole different set of senses. I could feel patterns tracing off into the floor and walls, but that was all the time I had to see what was going on before it bit me.

I wrinkled my nose, but not much more than that. Getting bit happens a lot when you're probing someone else's work, so I had been expecting it. It's like fiddling inside the toaster with a knife. If you're gonna do it, you expect the shock. "What's it do?" I wanted to know.

"The crystal will identify you to the shields, and will give you access to the lower levels of the building," the guard answered me. "I'm afraid without that identification, you wouldn't get very far. Since you're the only witch, you're the only one that has to touch."

Now I wasn't amused. "Are you aware that magical sentry systems are illegal in the state of New York?" I asked. It wasn't fair. If I couldn't have wards on my shop that kept out bad people, neither could they. Legally, they count the same as automatic traps in your house. You're allowed to have a burglar alarm, but not a booby trap.

He smiled, a smile that meant nothing. "Special dispensation," he said, "given the nature of the items secured in our vaults."

Hmph. Still wasn't fair. I looked at Ted. "From the moment I touch this thing," I told him, "you can't trust me. I can't tell what it really does."

He flashed a grin at me. This was just freaking me out. I hoped we were done soon. "Don't worry," he said. "I don't trust you anyway."

Sighing, I placed my hand on the pad. A network of electric prickles danced across my hand. I watched them with unfocused eyes, eyes that saw more magical than physical then. It looked like blue-white veins, thinning to capillaries as they tasted all possible permutations of my personal energy, my personal shields. Then they retreated. I knew the spell wasn't done, and looked up for no reason I could name.

The building rang. I don't know how else to put it. It wasn't a real sound. I was the only one who heard it. But it felt like being in the bell tower of Notre Dame. For the space of five seconds, the building vibrated around me like the peal of an enormous gong. I staggered under the inaudible sound, caught by Alec on one side and Chelsea on the other. 

"Are you ok?" Alec asked.

From his tone, it was clear he was repeating a question he'd already asked. I got my feet under me and tugged free. "I'm fine," I said. "Fine. Wow. That was interesting."

"Are you ok?" Ted asked, standing now a few steps away from me.

Same question, but I knew he meant something entirely different, so I answered him differently. "Yeah," I said, shaking off the last of the effect. "I think that was just one big, automatic version of what I did in my apartment to let Jacob in. It's just… This was to that what the Titanic was to the SS Minnow." I looked at the guard. "Who the hell is on your payroll?" I asked.

He smiled at me still, bland as bread. "If you'll move to the elevators and push the L1 button, you'll be met below."

Yeah, I just bet we would. 

The glass-and-marble elevator deposited us on what had been, at one time, a parking level. I don't know how I knew, it just looked like one. Like how a finished basement still looks like a basement. Maybe it was the lack of windows. The cement walls had been covered with drywall and painted in murals of what I could only assume were Grecian countryside. The cement supports were disguised as pillars. White fabric draped between them, turning the artificial light into a diffused haze. Red silk ribbons held the fabric up, like spills of blood against the pure white. It was like being in heaven, as designed by Versace.

Jacob was waiting for us at the elevator entrance. He had dressed in a creamy cableknit sweater that suited his brown hair and blue eyes. It was a bit loose on him, and considering Jacob's height and frame, the sweater must have been huge. With Jacob were two other weres. 

To his left was a blond man with a very precise haircut, dressed in a charcoal gray suit tailored to fit his broad shoulders and narrow hips. He didn't have Jacob's bulk, but he was clearly a devotee of some gym or another. His tie was deep red silk, almost burgundy, and creased exactly right. His eyes were hazel, and displayed a fine control and arrogance that I was beginning to associate with alpha males of any sort.

To Jacob's right was a man with coal-black hair, cut as if he cut it to keep it out of his face and for no other reason. Had it been long, it would have been wavy. As short as it was, it was curly. A muscle jumped in his jaw constantly, shifting beneath his heavy five o'clock shadow. His eyes were as dark as his hair, glittering in the light, narrowed with impatience. He was wearing a plain black t-shirt that bared his hairy arms and clung to his chest. He was big, bigger than Jacob, broader than Jacob. I figured it was his sweater Jacob was wearing. He also had on a pair of rumpled jeans, and black biker boots.

I recognized them both. The man in the suit was Devan, the public face of Jacob's pack. Everyone assumed he was the pack alpha, since Jacob was still concealing his nature. Devan had run a trading house when he was infected. That he still ran it after being a werewolf said something about his tenacity and willpower. He was powerful enough to be alpha, and was my private pick to take over the pack after Jacob.

The dark-haired man was Kincaid, and I'd never been sure if that was his first or last name. He looked like what you expect a werewolf to look like. It was likely he had even more raw power than either Devan or Jacob, but both of them played the game better than he did. If he got control of the pack, and he could take it, the pack would suffer for it. Kincaid thought more like a wolf than a man. Devan thought more like a man than a wolf. Jacob was a better blend of both things, knew how to keep both sides under control. So he was Ulfric.

They were Jacob's bodyguards, his Hati and Sköll. That's what I mean about Jacob knowing how to play the game. As long as they were sworn to protect him, neither of them would challenge for Freki, and neither could challenge Jacob for Ulfric. Come to think of it, I wasn't even sure who was Freki.

"About time," Jacob said. "What the fuck took so long? They wouldn't let me in until you got here with him."

"Just some housekeeping," I said. "We're ready."

He turned on his heel and strode for the far end of the space. I could see there the only doors except for those leading to the elevator. Devan and Kincaid stayed close to him, with me and Ted trailing them. Behind us were Alec, Jen, and Chelsea. I felt my hopes rise; there was enough power around me to light up the entire five-borough area. Surely that would be enough. Right?

One man, I assumed he was a vampire, stood in front of the doors. Just the one. Either the other vamps figured he could handle all of us, or no one much cared if he got killed standing in our way. 

"You have the man?" he asked.

"Yes. Now open the fucking doors or I'll rip you in half and use your torso to beat them down." 

Jacob, a tower of diplomacy.

The doorkeeper smiled slightly and turned to the doors. I didn't see what he did, but I felt the buzz of magic. That's why Jacob couldn't get in before. They weren't just locked, they were magically sealed. When we stepped through them, I felt them seal again at my back.

I didn't have much time to worry about that, though. The scene in front of me was terrible enough.

The room was a dark mirror to the outer hall. The pillars were black marble streaked with white. The murals on the black walls showed visions of Dante's hell. Black voile draped everywhere. We walked on a carpet of dense black fur that lead us toward what I could only call a dais, semi-circular, with shallow steps leading up. On the dais was one overlarge wooden chair. A man lounged in it, flanked left and right by vampires. Behind him and to his left was a high curtain, blocking our view of what was behind it.

Jacob took half a step to one side. I stepped forward, Ted still staying with me. I fixed my eyes firmly on the pale v-shaped patch of skin I could see of the vampire's chest.

"Miss Davenport." He sounded so self-satisfied.

I ignored it. I wanted this over. "We're here," I said. "You'll examine him, verify he is not who you think he is. We will take our lupa and all of us will leave. If we're all very good children, we'll all even be alive at the end of this."

"Do you really think that's what will happen?" he asked, curious.

"Look, you're provoking an all-out war with the werewolves, and if that's what you want, hey, best of luck with that. But when they're sweeping your ashes up off of Madison Avenue, I'm gonna say I told you so."

His voice echoed in the mostly open space, and dropped the temperature in the room by about three degrees. No, that's not literal. He was just getting annoyed with me. "They killed one of my vampires. I kill one of their wolves. It's an even trade."

Wolf energy spiraled through the air. This was going to get ugly fast. "Did you kill her?"

"No," Jacob said softly. "I'd know."

"No," Gideon agreed from his throne. "Look, we've been keeping her safe for you."

The curtain fell. Behind it was a wooden X, and hanging from that was Katherine.


	6. Chapter 6

The spikes holding her at her wrists and ankles were silver. Nothing else would have caused such livid wounds that didn't heal. She was naked, clothed only in blood and vampire bites. Her head dangled to one side, letting more blood trickle out of the corner of her mouth. Through the center of her body, just underneath the ribcage, was another silver spike. Horribly, her eyes were open. She blinked once, slowly.

Jacob's hand gripped my bare wrist. I exploded.

The world turned to golden fire around me, raging with flame and life. I smelled the blazing heat of midsummer, the fiery sun drawing musty moisture from the forest floor, making it rise in wavering streamers into the sky. Faintly, wolves roused from their sleep called to each other, pack touching pack, voices united. I stepped forward toward the dais. Strands of my hair spun and danced in front of me, lifted on currents of power.

"We are the lukoi," I breathed, my own voice thick and husky but still bouncing off the stone walls of the underground chamber. "We will not permit this." I raised my right hand toward Katherine, and obliquely noticed the quartz crystals screaming with focused beams of laser-like light.

Darkness stepped between me and my goal, a black finality that denied any attempt at brightness. "She comes down when I say she does," the darkness said in Gideon's voice, "and not before."

I lifted my head, meeting his eyes. They were amber, I saw, the same color of wolf eyes in his pale, pale face. His hair was long, chestnut-brown with a few sizzling highlights of red. Around him I saw an inky shifting, boiling black water searching for an escape. It gathered, drew back, then lashed out at me.

His power rolled down the connection between us where our eyes met, but I was buoyed by the energy cascading into me from Jacob, and through him, from the other wolves present. For the moment, I was safe. He couldn't touch me.

"Release her then," I said, listening to the reverberations of my own voice. A threat was building in me, but another part of me, a colder part, controlled it. If I threatened him, he'd have to keep Katherine or his people would think he had backed down, given in. He couldn't afford that.

"The wolves have slain one of my people," he said as his darkness licked around him in frustration. "I will be repaid."

I gestured toward Katherine. "You have been. The loss of one nameless vampire in exchange for the torment and blood of our lupa. But end it now."

Fierce howling underscored my words. Without turning, I knew that Alec, Jen, and Chelsea had shifted. Jacob and his bodyguards were still nominally human.

Gideon thought about it. I waited, the eye of whole hurricane of whup-ass waiting to descend if he made a choice that the wolves didn't like. We wouldn't all make it out, but one thing I was sure of: Gideon would be one of the ones that didn't.

He gestured. I recognized Cristan as he moved to Katherine and yanked the spikes out of her body. Guess he hadn't died after all. Pity. Her release drew protests from Katherine, though the screams had the breathy sound of someone who's screamed far too hard for far too long. 

When she fell, she fell into Jacob's arms. He drew his energy back from me, began pouring it into Katherine as Kincaid and Devan moved to protect him.

Just like that, I was empty. I felt cold, abandoned, hollowed-out, as if someone had stripped me of everything that made life worth living. The wolves surrounded Katherine, nuzzling and licking her, pressing their furry bodies hard against her. I stood near Ted, in front of Gideon, and couldn't help but let my tears flow.

"Now meet my eyes, little witch," Gideon murmured.

I didn't dare. All I wanted to do at that moment was hug my heartache and mourn. I could feel the dancing power that Jacob was rippling across Katherine, could feel her body drink it in and mend.

"Poor little thing," Gideon sighed. "Some allies are not to be trusted. Didn't you know they'd abandon you?"

"Whatever you're going to do," I said, eyes down, "you'd better do it before they get done healing her."

"Quite right!" He clapped his hands together and rubbed them briskly. "I believe my main business here is with Mr. Forrester."

I didn't look over at Ted. I had done all I could at this point. It was up to him to survive what they'd do to him.

"Look at me, Mr. Forrester," Gideon said softly.

Somewhere, close by, someone began playing classical music. I couldn't identify it, didn't know the piece. It was one string instrument, a cello I supposed.

"What's your name?"

"Ted Forrester."

"What's your real name?"

"Theodore Forrester."

I closed my eyes, to better follow the melody. It slid up and down a scale, mid-notes to bass, bass to mid-notes. I could hear the nuance so clearly, though the tune itself stayed indistinct. Who was playing music?

"You murder vampires."

"I used to. I stopped when they became legal citizens. Now, I'm a bounty hunter."

"Master, he's telling the truth."

"Don't interrupt me again, Cristan."

I opened my eyes, looked around. The music didn't echo, not the way voices did. "Do you…" I started to whisper. "Do you hear music?"

No one looked at me. Ted was caught up in Gideon's gaze. Cristan was staring at Ted, lips thinned to a tight, angry line. I didn't see a cellist anywhere. The music was louder now, and I found I could predict the melody. I knew the piece, but had no idea what it was. It soared upward.

"What kind of bounties do you take?"

"Shifters, mostly. Vampires, if the court orders it."

A frustrated silence, silence filled with that tune, that lone cello playing a poignant song. 

With a snarl, Gideon grabbed Ted by the arms. "I know what you are, human. Death, we call you. Death for all the vampires you've murdered. Tell me the truth, that you are Death!"

Ted didn't move. He couldn't give Gideon the answer he wanted; it wasn't true. A droplet of blood oozed out of Ted's nose, spilling down his mouth. A matching trickle eased from his ear.

Well now, that hadn't been part of the bargain. "No," I said, raising my voice over the music. "He isn't."

Gideon's head whipped toward me, but he was a little slow for a master vampire. I guess I surprised him. I had already closed my hand around the Glock at the small of my back. As I was bringing it around to Gideon, I popped off two shots at the vampires on the dais, sending them scattering. My third shot took Gideon in the shoulder; he was quick enough to dodge the shot to his head.

Ted had recovered at this point, had a gun in each hand. He's not bad with a gun, Ted. He shot Gideon three times in the chest before he had to change sights to Cristan, another two shots exploding in his chest. The cello music had cycled back to the beginning again, replaying the melody. I could hear every note crystal clear; it overpowered even the thunderclaps of gunfire at close range.

We turned at the same time, placing our backs to each other. Smooth as silk, I reached my empty hand around and into Ted's waistband, yanking free the Desert Eagle he had there. Fifty calibers in one hand, forty in the other, I emptied both clips. The bullets were homemade, little more than silver casings around holy water and mercury, to make the weight correct. They made nice holes in undead flesh, and made even nicer explosions when they broke open inside one.

It doesn't take long to fire fifteen shots. Ted finished first; my wrists were giving me problems with my accuracy. I had to take a little extra time to line up my follow-ups. 

A vampire flew at me. I hate it when they do that. "Down!" I yelled, dropping. Ted fell as I did. Over us both, a werewolf in wolf form tackled the vampire. Like it or not, we were now in deep shit.

"I'm out," I said tersely, thumbing the magazine releases and dropping out both from the guns. The other werewolves were scattering through the room, taking on vampires.

"ENOUGH!" bellowed Jacob. 

I looked over. He was on the dais, Katherine standing next to him on her own wobbly feet. She was still naked and covered in blood, but she was whole and unmarked. My eyes flicked over the underground room. The wolves had all stopped. Two of them were in half-form, locked at arm's length with vampires. Ted stood, and I followed his lead.

"Yes," Gideon agreed, trailing his fingers in the gunshot wounds in his stomach and licking his fingers. "Quite enough. At the risk of sounding like a schoolboy, my dear Ulfric, your people started this particular conflict. I believe the witch shot first." 

I was having trouble hearing him over the tune. I didn't know who he meant, but truthfully as long as no one was moving, I was fine. I wasn't sure I could get fresh clips from Ted in time to do much. Fuck, I hate master vampires. I should have brought something with a little more kick. The Uzi, maybe.

Jacob looked at me, scowling heavily. "You shot someone?"

I shrugged slightly. "They hurt Ted."

Gideon climbed the stairs of the dais and sat back down. His long fingers reached inside one of the gunshot wounds and picked out a fragment of metal that he dropped. The sound of metal hitting stone steps was lost to me. "Perhaps I did get a little carried away," he said. With a smile up at Jacob, he apologized. "Sorry about that."

Jacob shook his head slightly, lips slashed downward. "Jesus Christ, Gideon. Sorry about that? Look, are you satisfied that this guy isn't who you were looking for?"

He looked over at Ted and me. I looked at his chin. It takes practice to look at a vampire's face without looking him in the eyes, but it was a matter of pride at this point. "He isn't Death," Gideon said slowly. "But she…"

Jacob laughed, a short, hard sound devoid of much in the way of amusement. "Rachel? Rachel has trouble killing spiders."

"Odd. She certainly seems to have quite a knack for using a gun."

"We're done here." Jacob stripped out of his sweater and handed it to Katherine, watching her to make sure she got it on. "Gideon, it's been as much fun as it ever is. We'll leave you to scrape up whatever is left of your people. Pull this shit again, and it's on."

"Eloquent as ever, Mr. Gardner. Thank you for dinner and the show. It's been… enlightening." He was looking at me again. I didn't like it. I didn't like it, because I didn't have any bullets left. If I had, I'd have shot him. Fuck it. That music was giving me a headache anyway. It was fading, softer now, but still in the background.

"He just called our lupa 'dinner'," Kincaid muttered to Jacob as he passed, heading toward the door.

"Call it a day, Kincaid," Jacob ordered. "It's a draw. Take it and go, when it's the best you can do."

Sound philosophy. I put the Glock back in my waistband after snapping the slide closed, and handed the Eagle back to Ted. "Do you hear music?" I asked him in a low undertone.

He studied my face a minute. "Later," he promised me. 

We walked to the elevators. I didn't like having a room full of bleeding, wounded vampires at my back. I knew I hadn't heard the last from any of them. But the werewolves were on our side, for now. We could trust them as far as the door, I supposed. They surrounded us, four in human form, three in wolf form. Made for a tight squeeze in the elevators. I didn't like feeling pinned, but they seemed to like the closeness. 

The wolves, Devan, and Kincaid got into a limo parked in front of the building, Devan nodding to the driver. His, then. Rich werewolves. Christ. Jacob and Katherine got into the car Chelsea had driven, getting the spare key from the glove compartment. Who the hell keeps a spare car key in their glove compartment in New York City?

Jacob looked up at the rearview mirror, eyeing us in the back seat. "Anyone want to tell me what the fuck is going on?" he asked.

I didn't. I looked out the window, leaving Ted to answer. "We have to get her back to her apartment," he said.

Jacob floored it, leaving a trail of honking horns in his wake. "Fine," he said. "But then I want an explanation."

When we got to the apartment, everyone looked at me again. "What?" I asked as we stood in the hall.

"Keys," Ted said.

Oh. Keys. Yes. Frowning in confusion, I fumbled them out of my pocket and unlocked the door.

The apartment was a mess. Cardboard covered one window. Most of the lights were out, except for the one in the kitchen. Glass sparkled on the floor, tiny fragments not yet swept up. In the center of the room floated one long feather, a swan feather. Ripped t-shirts were scattered across the coffee table next to a bottle of witch hazel. Beside the love seat and the lone chair were empty coffee cups with little silver chains sticking out of them. The coffee table was shoved out of position, nearly touching the chair.

"Someone should clean this up," I commented, stepping further into the room.

As Jacob moved aside, letting in more light from the hallway, I saw that glass wasn't all that was on the carpet. There was a powder there, too, faintly white and silver. It was a circle and a star inside it. At each point of the star there was a candle holder and a partially burnt candle. 

I stared at it. It was significant. It meant something. Something I had done, or was supposed to do, or a little of both.

Katherine was still in the hall, hands splayed in front of her. "I can't," she said. "I can't get in."

Jacob turned stormy eyes to me. "God damn it, Rachel…"

Was I supposed to do something?

Ted took me by the shoulders. I let him turn me and searched his expressions for any answer to my confusion. Staring directly into my eyes, he said, "Prelude in G Major."

Music crashed around me. The cello, the single cello, louder than the voice of God. I clapped my hands over my ears, bent double to avoid it.

"Fuck," Ted spat. "Rachel, you told me you could fix this!"

"What the hell is going on?!" Jacob yelled.

Katherine called to them as I tried to straighten under the burden of crushing sound. But I could still hear them talk. "Wait," she said softly. She looked around the apartment. "She did a spell."

"Yes," Ted said, running a hand over his head.

"And something's gone wrong?"

"You could say that."

She looked up at Jacob. "When I was hanging there, she lit up like a bonfire. Then you healed me. Did you take the energy from her?"

"What does that have to do with anything? I gave it to her in the first place."

"Not all of it," Katherine countered. "Some of it was hers."

"Hell," Jacob said succinctly. He strode towards me in two long steps. My eyes were watering as I tried to concentrate, to follow their conversation through the screaming strains of music. He took my face in his hands.

Abruptly, I understood. I snatched wisps of power from Jacob and grabbed for Ted, scraping my fingernails over his arm before successfully holding his wrist. In one wrench of willpower, fueled by a desire to be free, I shoved it all at him, shoved hard enough that he flew backwards out of my grasp and slammed into a wall.

The apartment was silent, except for my hoarse breathing. The music had stopped.


	7. Chapter 7

Jacob left to get his third change of clothing for the day, promising to come back to take Ted to the airport. He had said he'd take a taxi, but Katherine pointed out that there was an off chance the vampires might not be done with him. Dawn was here, but they had human servants. Ted agreed, finally, since he had to take a shower and get changed. Can't go into the airport covered in blood, even if it is the rarified blood of a master vampire.

That left me alone with Katherine. Yeah, I had taken down the feather, righted my shields. Werewolves could come and go. Little point to keeping them out now. I stayed in the kitchen making coffee for as long as I could. She was running the vacuum cleaner in the living room, the one I'd set out earlier but had never used. I watched coffee drizzle into the pot beneath the filter and inhaled the warm, homey scent. My eyes drifted closed as I basked in it. It always reminds me of comfort, of breakfasts with my family. It's one of the first things we smell that stays with us our entire lives.

Faintly, I heard a cello play.

"Rachel?" Katherine touched my shoulder.

I jumped. "Sorry," I said. "Didn't hear you come in."

She stuffed a lock of hair behind one of her ears. It was sticky with blood, but she didn't seem to mind much. By all rights, she should have been first in the shower. "I think that's as clean as your carpet gets with a vacuum cleaner. One of the pack works for a professional place. I'll send him around tomorrow, and a glazier for your window."

"You don't have to do that."

"It's no problem. It's what we do for each other."

"I'm not part of the pack."

"Vargamor. Close enough."

I smiled a little as I got down two more mugs from the cabinet. "You know about that, huh?"

She folded her arms and rested a hip against my counter. "Jacob's been talking about you damn near non-stop since February. I mean, you've been his choice for vargamor for longer than that, but I think he took you seriously when you told him to stop stalking you or you'd lock him in wolf form. Can you actually do that?"

I nodded. It wasn't hard, not really. Wolf was one of his natural forms, and he was a magical creature. "Any witch could."

I think she liked the idea. "Hmm. Anyway, since February…" She trailed off, and I handed her a cup of coffee.

"Doesn't it bother you at all?" I asked, getting the milk from the 'fridge so I wouldn't have to look at her.

"Doesn't what bother me? The pack needs a vargamor, Rachel. Things don't go as smoothly without one."

"No, I mean…" I had the milk, but wasn't ready to turn around. "I mean Jacob and me."

Silence, but I felt her sympathy. I wished she wasn't so nice. No one who had to live with Jacob should be so nice. "Not really," she said. "Jacob likes to win. He wants what he wants, and, at the risk of making him sound like the Terminator, he absolutely will not stop until he gets it. It helps make him a good Ulfric."

I half-turned, handing her the milk, and went for the sugar bowl. It's a clay pot with a cork lid that says Witches Brew on the front. "So now that he has me as vargamor, he'll leave me alone?"

She laughed, a low, soft chuckle. "No. The three of us are going to be seeing a lot of each other, I'd imagine. Besides, he wants to fuck you so bad he can taste it."

"It sounds so charming when you say it."

Katherine set her coffee down. "Look, Rachel. I've been with Jacob since the beginning. We were made within days of each other. Every step he's taken up the ladder I've been right there on his heels. He and I even fought it out over who would get to go Fenrir. We're friends and lovers and I'm the only person in the pack he trusts to have his back so I'm his Lupa. But we're not in love."

She leaned to the side, trying to see my face. Reluctantly, I flicked a glance at her, then went back to stirring sugar into my cup. It didn't need it. I did. "You have to understand Jacob," she continued. "He puts everything he has into the pack. He doesn't hold anything back. He doesn't have private moments, he doesn't take lunch breaks. I'm saying there's no room in his heart or in his life for a romance."

"Woah, wait a minute. I'm not in love with Jacob," I objected. "It's just probably, given the nature of what we do, going to come down to sex sooner or later. I mean, I'm stubborn but the Rock of Gibraltar I'm not. You're his mate. I thought that might bug you."

She sipped her coffee black. Yuck. "You've spent months being pursued by a strong, virile, handsome man who made it clear he'd do anything to have you. There's a sexual attraction between you two that lights up the night. Now that he has you, now that you're part of the pack, you'll see the side of him that would tear the city off its foundations if he had to do it to keep you safe. Don't fall in love with him, Rachel. It's nothing personal."

She left the kitchen, left me to think about that. I heard her exchange pleasantries with Ted, only then realizing the shower had stopped. The bathroom door closed. I hoped the hot water would hold out.

Ted moved into the kitchen and fixed himself a cup of coffee, taking far less time about it than I had.

"I'm not in love with him," I told Ted.

"Good," he said.

Fine. As long as that was clear. "How do you… I mean, do you…"

"I'm fine."

"Are you capable of polysyllablism?"

"Is that even a word?"

"Pretend it is."

"I'm fine, Rachel."

He took his coffee into the living room, and I followed him. "I was just thinking maybe it wasn't such a good idea to separate Edward from Ted," I said.

He made himself comfy on my loveseat. I took the chair. "Too late to worry about it now. Anyway, it worked."

"Did it feel different?"

"You should know."

Yeah, it had felt different. I watched steam rise from my cup. "I don't even really remember what happened. It's all sort of blurry," I said. "Decisions were simpler, I guess. There was just this feeling of action/reaction." Fingers of music, faint and distant, echoed through my head. I pushed it aside with a frown. "Did I kill anyone?"

"Maybe. Does it matter?"

"Yes, Ted, it matters. It's supposed to matter!"

He studied me with those calm blue eyes. "You still hear it, don’t you?"

That drained the momentary ire right out of me. "Yes," I whispered. "When I relax, or when I let my thoughts wander. I hear it. Do you?"

He shook his head faintly. "Only when I kill," he said.

"Maybe it'll go away."

"Maybe."

We sat in silence, listening to the city waking up. Ted stretched, and I heard his spine pop a time or two. "Hell of a way to spend a vacation," he commented.

I blinked. "What?"

He nodded his head toward the windows. "Vacation," he clarified. "I came here on vacation. Bought some new guns, figured I'd take in the sights. I've never been to the top of the Empire State Building before."

That startled a laugh out of me. "Vacation?" I sputtered.

He nodded again, grinning slightly, an abashed little boy expression.

I took a breath, wiped tears from the corners of my eyes, and said, "Well, I think I speak for all of us when I say, next time, go the fuck to Tahiti."

"Fuck you," he said, and rose to move to his bags.

I turned my head to keep him in view. I was more comfortable around Ted now. We had shared a psychotic personality. I guess that'll help.

When he came back to me, he had a bag in his hands. It was white, and had a picture of the New York skyline on it. He held it out to me.

My eyes went from it to his face, but he was as inscrutable as only Ted could be. I took it, and knew from its weight what it was. I glanced anyway, just to be sure. Sure enough, the matte black finish of the Glock gleamed with deceptively gentle light.

"Ted, I don’t…"

He cut me off. "It’s yours," he said. "Whether you want it or not. You killed with it."

"Haven’t you?"

"No," he said, a hint of a smile tugging at his lips. "I don’t usually use Glocks."

From directly below the window, a horn honked several times in impatient succession.

"That'll be Jacob," Ted said, walking back to his bags. There were three; an overnight one he slung over his shoulder, one large metallic suitcase that had locks, and one regular nylon bag.

"I didn't kill anyone, Ted."

He looked back at me for a minute, as if deciding what to say. "They'll be coming for you, Rachel. If they have to, they'll wait until you're not under the pack's protection any more. Vampires don't forget. And they don't forgive."

I hoped he was wrong, but was terrified he was right. "Ted…"

He stopped, the door open, halfway in the hallway.

"Do you hate me?"

"For what?"

"For taking it away and giving it back."

He looked back at me again, and it was Edward staring out from behind those eyes. Cold, blue, flat eyes. "Don't ask me that now."

The door shut softly behind him, the latch catching with a click.

I huddled around my coffee cup. So much for our new level of understanding. Edward wanted me dead, and Ted was keeping him in check. Maybe that’s how it always was with him. I wondered if he was hearing music now, one lone cello spilling out a cyclic melody in the confines of his head.

"Too fucking bad," I muttered, taking a defiant sip of my coffee. I had done what I set out to do. I had saved Ted's life, rescued the lupa, kept the Ulfric from going apeshit, and I didn't think I'd pissed off the Master of the City too much. Best of all, none of us had gotten killed. That's all that mattered, wasn't it?

Well, wasn't it?


End file.
